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THE LOST SLOW MOVEMENT FROM BEETHOVEN'S QUARTET OP. 18 NO. 2
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 July 2012
Abstract
In October 1799 Beethoven delivered manuscript copies of three new quartets (Op. 18 Nos 1–3) to Prince Lobkowitz. The following year, however, he revised Nos 1 and 2, writing a new slow movement for No. 2 in which little of the original material was retained. The original slow movement was discarded and is now lost, but many sketches for it survive in the sketchbook Grasnick 2. Although these sketches seem disjointed and fragmentary, they represent all seventy-four bars of a complete movement, with some lower parts also indicated for more than half the bars, enabling the movement to be reconstructed in much detail. This lost movement is of great interest, with some striking imitation and modulations in the two contrasting episodes, and an ending that reconciles the opening theme with the stormy second section. The movement is of particular importance since no other lost works completed by Beethoven that are of such substance are known from such a late date.
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References
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27 An attempt at a full reconstruction by the present writer was performed by the Quatuor Danel in Manchester on 29 September 2011 and broadcast by the BBC.
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